1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automotive air conditioner which blows out, inside a vehicle, air having a temperature adjusted to a desired temperature by mixing cold air with warm air.
2. Description of the Related Art
There is known a conventional automotive air conditioner in which an air passageway including a cold air path via an evaporator, a warm air path via a heater core, and a plurality of discharge paths which communicates with blowing outlets (def outlet, vent outlet, foot outlet), respectively, is formed inside an air-conditioning case, and cold air and warm air distributed by an opening degree of an air mix door flow to each of the discharge paths via a junction region of the cold air and the warm air (for example, refer to JP2001-113931A).
There is also known a conventional automotive air conditioner configured to reduce the amount of required space for, compared with a structure which provides a rotary door, and configured to prevent disordered air flow (for example, refer to JP2002-307929A). In such an air conditioner, a foot opening formed in the side wall of an air-conditioning case is opened and closed by a foot door made of a plate member.
There is also known a conventional automotive air conditioner configured to reduce a temperature difference between a blowing temperature from a defrost opening and a blowing temperature from a foot opening (for example, JP2003-154836A). In such an automotive air conditioner, a foot opening is opened and closed by a foot door made of a rotary door, and an area of a warm air bypass to a defrost is adjusted.
However, in the conventional techniques described in JP2001-113931A and JP2002-307929A, the air is distributed to the foot outlet by advancing a half of the foot door, so the cold air from the cold air path and the warm air from the warm air path are not sufficiently mixed in the junction region, causing a problem such as a low air-mixing performance.
In the technique described in JP2003-154836A, although the rotary door is described, it is only a pair of narrow rotary doors disposed in both side portions of the vehicle width direction of the air-conditioning case, and the door space of the rotary doors is a closed space. For this reason, the rotary doors described in JP2003-154836A do not have an air-mixing guide performance which encourages the mixing of the cold air and the warm air.
Moreover, since the rotary door is required to be disposed in a position which does not interfere with the movement of the air mix door, the layout of the rotary door and the air mix door is limited. For example, the distance between the shafts of two doors should be maintained at a predetermined distance or more when setting the two doors in the air-conditioning case. In addition, since the door space of the rotary door is not used as an air passageway, it is necessary to retain a necessary air passageway space in the air-conditioning case in addition to the rotary door. As a result, there is a problem in that even if there is a demand for downsizing the air-conditioning case, this demand cannot be met.